Donald Trump made a surprise trip to Iraq to visit with troops on Wednesday, after being criticizes repeatedly for not doing so earlier in his presidency. Yet, according to CNN National Security Analyst Sam Vinograd, while the president physically made the journey, he seemed to have confused this overseas visit with a campaign rally.

“I mean I suppose, you know, folks can stop knocking him for this, right, that it took him this long to get to a war zone,” Jim Acosta, who was filling in for Wolf Blitzer said. “He has done it.”

Acosta then asked: “What benefit do you think he’ll take away from this?”

“Well, Jim, he can certainly check the box that he physically made it to Iraq, but what he actually did on the ground while he was there is just as important,” Vinograd replied.

She then noted that presidential trips are usually aimed at telling “the military how much their service matters to the country and why their ongoing mission is so critical to the safety and security of the American people.”

Trump’s trip, though, she said, was a bit different.

“The president seems to have confused in some way this troop visit with a campaign rally by raising things like the border wall and things he has done for them,” she continued on.

Trump, in his speech to the troops in Iraq, delivered remarks that sounded at times as if he were at a campaign rally: “We’re no longer the suckers, folks, and people aren’t looking at us as suckers and I love you folks because most of you are nodding your head this way.“ pic.twitter.com/mYxKRxwmOh

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) December 27, 2018

What he really failed to do, she further stressed, was “at least as far as we know right now, is really make very clear why their ongoing presence in Iraq, Syria aside, is critical to the safety and security of the American people.”

Then, summing up Trump’s brief trip, the CNN Security analyst concluded, “There was a lot of gaslighting about what U.S. forces are doing in other theaters and less of a focus, frankly, on the ongoing stabilization mission and counterterrorism mission that the forces in Iraq are performing.”

WATCH: